Southwest Airlines' on-time rate plummets

Tuesday

Dec 31, 2013 at 12:01 AMDec 31, 2013 at 6:13 AM

A major airline suddenly can't seem to get passengers to their destinations on time, posting worst-in-the-industry on-time rates. But, surprise. It's not an airline that cynics love to hate - mega-carriers United Airlines or American Airlines. And it's not an ultra-discounter such as Spirit Airlines. It's perennial consumer favorite Southwest Airlines, which will fly more passengers this holiday season - and this year - than any other airline.

A major airline suddenly can’t seem to get passengers to their destinations on time, posting worst-in-the-industry on-time rates.

But, surprise. It’s not an airline that cynics love to hate — mega-carriers United Airlines or American Airlines. And it’s not an ultra-discounter such as Spirit Airlines.

It’s perennial consumer favorite Southwest Airlines, which will fly more passengers this holiday season — and this year — than any other airline. Southwest typically tops customer-satisfaction ratings, thanks in part to such consumer-friendly policies as free checked bags and no fees to change a flight.

But recently, Dallas-based Southwest has had the worst on-time rates in America. It’s a shocking turn for an airline that once topped the industry in punctuality year after year and regularly bragged about it.

For the second consecutive month, Southwest has placed at the bottom of the monthly on-time statistics, according to data reported to the U.S. Department of Transportation. This is the first time since at least 1995, when the current DOT reporting system began, that Southwest ranked last in any month.

Southwest is the dominant carrier out of Chicago Midway International Airport and has more departures from there than from any other airport. The airline’s on-time rate at Midway this year has been abysmal: An average of only two of three flights a day depart on time, according to the most-recent DOT statistics.

It’s certainly part of the reason that Midway has an on-time departure rate this year of 68.7 percent, worst in the United States through the first 10 months of the year. That’s down significantly from its 77 percent on-time rate last year.

Seth Kaplan, managing partner of Airline Weekly, said it was surprising to see Southwest at the bottom of any consumer ranking.

“Although they have transitioned in recent years to more of a revenue-focused airline, they’ve always been an airline that got the operation right.”

The reasons for Southwest’s on-time woes are many. For one, Southwest has a penchant for scheduling flights close together, giving little wiggle room when flights encounter weather problems, said Henry Harteveldt, a travel-industry analyst for Hudson Crossing.

“Southwest schedules its planes so tightly, to maximize efficiency and keep fares low, that even a slight delay early in the morning can snowball into a larger delay through the balance of the day,” Harteveldt said.

And through the years, Southwest has expanded into congested air markets that are more prone to delays, such as New York.

Because Southwest is not strictly a hub-and-spoke airline and doesn’t fly as many back-and-forth flights as major network carriers do, its spare aircraft are less often in places where they’re needed, which can lead to delays, Kaplan said.

Southwest spokesman Brian Parrish said the reason for the terrible on-time rates in August, September and October has been “a combination of unexpected summer weather and changes made to our schedule.”

“We are aware of the pain points in our network, and we continue to work on schedule adjustments that will improve our future performance,” he said.

In an attempt to improve its on-time rates, Southwest changed its schedule last week, extending for some routes the total time it allots for such tasks as flying, taxiing, loading and unloading passengers, and preparing the aircraft for the next flight.

But delays on Southwest could continue in the near term.

“Adjustments take several months to implement, due to the complexity of our schedule,” Parrish said. “But we do expect to see improvement by early next year.”

Brett Snyder, a blogger on CrankyFlier.com and operator of a small travel-concierge service, said he has noticed a problem lately with Southwest flights being delayed. “It’s been worse in the last month, from our perspective, though to be fair, we’re a pretty small snapshot of the entire picture,” he said.

Southwest’s performance woes are a sharp contrast with its reputation in the mid-1990s, when for five years in a row it was tops in on-time performance, baggage handling and low complaint rates. It bestowed on itself the “Triple Crown” award for excelling on those measures, which are important to fliers.

Fast-forward 20 years, and the picture is quite different. Nationally, Southwest dominates the industry in chronically late flights. In October, it operated 37 of 41 flights that the DOT flagged as being late 70 percent of the time or more.

In September, Southwest Flight 3679 from Midway to St. Louis was late 82 percent of the time, by an average of 54 minutes. The same flight number from Cleveland to Chicago was late 68 percent of the time, according to DOT figures.

“We are working diligently to provide our customers in Chicago, and across the country, the travel experience they know and love on every Southwest flight, every day,” Parrish said.

Kaplan said the good news is that the delays are not a result of the typical reasons, such as work slowdowns by unhappy union workers or merged airlines combining reservation systems, which often leads to glitches.

“My guess is that this will probably take care of itself, because there’s not the obvious things that have caused operational issues at other airlines,” he said.

During September and October, when Southwest had the worst on-time rates, its rate of complaints filed by consumers was lowest and second-lowest in the industry, respectively.

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